Correspondence from Bono Region

Artisans who undergo various trading activities at Odumasi-Low Cost are faced with lack of toilet facility.

In the year 2007, artisans and residents at Low Cost benefited from a toilet facility which was a project by the then government of Ghana under Highly Indebted Poor Country, HIPC.

This toilet facility became the first and only public toilet facility, which served the entire residents and artisans at Low Cost.

For the past four years, this toilet facility, which remains the only public facility, has been in a very poor state and has subsequently, been abandoned by both artisans and residents.

According to Mr Appiah Manu, a resident at Low Cost, a strong wind in December 2016, ripped off the roofing of the toilet facility and has since not been replaced. This facility used to serve over two hundred households, from those at Low Cost, to those at Yooyooso, he added.

Mr Baah Twum Emmanuel, a former unit committee member of the Yooyooso Electoral Area indicated that some unscrupulous people in the area, immediately turned the toilet facility into a refuse dump as soon as the roofing sheets were ripped off by a strong wind in December 2016.

Mrs Elizabeth Adjei, a master hairdresser with seven apprentices, complained that they find it difficult anytime they come to work and have to respond to nature's call. We have to either beg the landlord of a nearby house to use his toilet facility or we have to take a motorbike to town before we can have access to a public toilet facility.

A tenant closer to this abandoned toilet facility disclosed that she is faced with a lot of used pampers that she has to sweep every morning. Nursing mothers do not have any place to keep these used pampers and so have to damp them any place they can find. This, she said, has been a bigger challenge for her and her other tenants closer to this abandoned public toilet facility.

Mr Akapho Stephen, an electrician who has his shop few meters away from this abandoned public toilet facility was not happy at the rate at which some artisans have turned the back of his shop into a urinal. He complained of the bad odour and stink he has to endour anytime he comes to work, especially in the afternoon. Mr Akapho appealed to the assembly to come to their aid to build a urinal and a toilet facility for them.